A mum left scarred for life in a doorstep acid attack was targeted again just months later as thugs rammed into her car and attacked her partner.
Theresa Townsley, 38, suffered serious burns to her face and neck when she was splashed with acid at her Edinburgh home in November 2018.
It has now emerged that Ms Townsley feared she was going to die when her car was rammed repeatedly by a pick-up truck and a man battered the windows with a scythe, the Daily Record reports.
Her partner, James Wilson, needed more than 40 stitches after being hit on the head with a spade in a row over a £13,000 car, a court heard.
Last week, violent Alexander Burke and his son, Alexander Burke Jnr, were jailed at Hamilton Sheriff Court for assaulting Ms Townsley, Mr Wilson and her sister in Lanarkshire in May.
There was no suggestion that incident was linked to the acid attack.
Ms Townsley, who has moved away from Edinburgh since the acid attack, told the court that Burke, 48, owed her partner £13,000 for a Ford Transit truck, so they went to meet him in Strathclyde Park.
But violence erupted when Burke, his son and other men arrived.
Ms Townsley fled the scene with her sister, Mary Jean, but her vehicle was rammed by a pick-up at a motorway junction.
Burke Jnr, 28, jumped out and hit the car windows with a scythe.
Ms Townsley told the jury as she wept: “He put the scythe through the passenger side window and tried to cut me.
“He was saying ‘You’re dead, you’re dead’. We thought we were going to die.
“Burke Jnr smashed the rest of the windows then ran back to the pick-up.”
Burke Jnr was jailed for three years after being found guilty of assaulting Mr Wilson, who was left with permanently disfigured.
He was also found guilty of assaulting Ms Townsley and her sister.
Burke Snr was found guilty of the attack on the sisters and jailed for two years.
Related video:
The court appearance came a year after Ms Townsley's was attacked on her doorstep in the Gracemount area of Edinburgh.
A hooded man threw acid over her when she answered the door.
No-one has been brought to justice over the attack.
In a statement earlier this month, Ms Townsley said: "It was the worst day of my life and today (the one-year anniversary, on November 9) is the second worst as it brings it all back.
“Day to day it is still hard, just to go out of the house, to look in the mirror.
“Most of the time I am confined to the house.
“I am scarred for life. People coming forward with information could prevent someone else suffering as I have.”
